Sapere Aude!

Herschel Telescope Spots a Star Spewing Powerful Water Jets into Interstellar Space | Popular Science

Researchers looking for signs of life elsewhere in the universe often start by looking for one key ingredient necessary to complex life as we know it: water. And just 750 light-years away, they’ve found quite a bit of it spewing from the poles of a young, sunlike star that is blasting jets of H₂O into interstellar space at 124,000 miles per hour.

This discovery is interesting on a number of levels. For one, it indicates that throughout the universe young protostars could be distributing vast quantities of water, potentially seeding life elsewhere.

via www.popsci.com

One of the key premises of the contemporary design argument is that the conditions required for life to emerge as so improbable that they must have been fine-tuned by a supernatural, intelligent designer.  But findings like the one above as well as here on Earth suggest that the conditions required for life are not as narrow as traditionally thought.

Rival Traditions, Academic Discourse, and the Synthese Affair

At the end of Three Rival Version of Moral Enquiry, Alasdair MacIntyre writes:

"Yet if within one and the same university arena modes of enquiry teaching and learning would have to develop in these very different ways, so that not only was thesis matched with thesis and argument against argument but genre against genre, the subversion of authority against the recreation of authority, how could the university achieve a genuinely shared conversation?  Surely a set of rival universities would result, each modeled on, but improving upon, its own best predecessor, the Thomist perhaps upon Paris in 1272, the genealogist upon Vincennes in 1968.  And thus the wider society would be confronted with the claims of rival universities, each advancing its own enquiries in its own terms and each securing the type of agreement necessary to ensure the progress and flourishing of its enquiries by its own set of exclusions and prohibitions, formal and informal.  But then also required would be a set of institutionalized forums in which the debate between rival types of enquiry was afforded rhetorical expression" (p. 234).

One of the objections from the ID camp in the Synthese affair is that Barbara Forrest's article on Francis Beckwith's views lacks a professional and dispassionate tone.  If MacIntyre is correct, however, it's not clear we should expect there to be a professional, rational consensus on what constitutes appropriate, philosophical discourse to which proponents of rival traditions of inquiry can appeal in order to settle disputes over "tone" and "professinalism" in academic journals.  It's a debate between rival traditions of inquiry over what counts as legitimat science, whether justice requires including alternative "scientific" explanations for origins, and what constitutes the appropriate standards for academic discourse.  What is troubling to me is the fact that proponents of one tradition in the Synthese affair (Beckwith, natural theology) seem to not want to allow the proponents of a rival tradition (Forrest, methodological naturalism) an opportunity for rhetorical expression in a forum for debate bewteen rival traditions of inquiry.

Glenn Beck: 'I Haven't Seen A Half-Monkey, Half-Person Yet' (AUDIO)

Glenn Beck: 'I Haven't Seen A Half-Monkey, Half-Person Yet' (AUDIO).  Beck is an idiot. 

Twisted Sister vs. Christine O'Donnell on Evolution

Bill Maher has promised to play a clip of Christine O'Donnell from Politically Incorrect until she comes on Real Time.  Here's last night's clip, in which Dee Snider from Twister Sister demonstrates he knows more about evolutionary theory than O'Donnell.

O'Donnell calls evolution a myth then demonstrates she doesn't know what evolutionary theory really claims when she asks why monkeys do not continue to evolve into humans as if evolution claims monkeys give birth to homo sapiens.  Of course, that's not what evolutionary theory claims at all as even an Intelligent Design theorist will tell you.  Dee Snider corrects her by explaining that it takes a long time.

The Search for Biological Origins on Squidbillies

The Evolution Debate on Futurama

Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Preview - Evolution Under Attack
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Futurama New Episodes Roast of David Hasselhoff It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Louisiana Creationists Delay Church/State Lawsuit

It looks like the people of Livingston Parish are at least smart enough to know that introducing Creationism into the school curriculum is likely to bring about another Church/State lawsuit.

LIVINGSTON — The Livingston Parish School Board won’t try to include the teaching of creationism in this year’s curriculum, but has asked the School Board staff to look at the issue for possible future action,  board officials said.

A decision to teach creationism could become expensive for the parish school system, said Marjorie Esman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“If they were to do it, they could anticipate that any litigation would result in them not only losing, but having to pay enormous legal fees,” she said. “They would be wasting a huge amount of taxpayer money on a battle they can’t win.”

Livingston Parish School Board President Keith Martin, who acknowledges that the parish school system faces major financial challenges, said the cost of litigation does have to be taken into consideration.

“A lawsuit is something you always have to factor in because of finances of the board,” Martin said.

We're constantly told by the proponents of Creationism that introducing it into the curriculum is not about promoting a particular religion, but about teaching legitimate science.  But, it seems pretty obvious that for at least one member of the School Board it's all about promiting his religion.

David Tate, the School Board member who brought up the matter at the board’s last meeting, said he would rather not see litigation, but added that the board gets sued on other matters.

“We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation,” Tate said.

Tate said teaching evolution as a theory is fine, but there are other ideas.

“Creationism is another thought of how things came into being,” he said. “Give every theory due time” in the classroom.

“We don’t all have to believe the same thing,” Tate said.

Tate must be a complete idiot.  Louisiana has taken a stand for Jesus on this matter before and has always come out with the short end of the stick.  I'm sure his comments above will be introduced as evidence by the ACLU if they do end up trying to inject Creationism into the curriculum later on down the road.  These folks just do not get it.  Education is not about giving equal time to whatever views people happen to hold.  It's about learning the best scientific theories human beings have developed.

Liberal Creationists Are Not Very Intelligent | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine

Liberal Creationists Are Not Very Intelligent | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine.

Rapping About Natural Selection

Rachel Maddow had a rapper on to drop some knowledge about the creationist attack on modern science.

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That's pretty good given the subject matter, but I think they could have come up with some better beats if they got The Neptunes on board.

Evolution and Religious Dogma in the News

Sorry, dude, it's a myth.

Meanwhile, a Seminary fires a noted Old Testament scholar because he suggests it's time for some Evangelicals to consider the consequences of continuing to reject modern, scientific consensus about Evolution.

When it comes to incriminating videos these days, the one of Bruce K. Waltke might seem pretty tame. It shows the noted evangelical scholar of the Old Testament talking about scholarship, faith and evolution. What was incriminating? He not only endorsed evolution, but said that evangelical Christianity could face a crisis for not coming to accept science.

"If the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult ... some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God's Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness," he says, according to several accounts by those who have seen the video. Those words set off a furor at the Reformed Theological Seminary, where Waltke was -- until this week -- a professor. (The seminary is evangelical, with ties to several denominations.)

I guess they don't want to teach the controversy.